Spectroscopic studies of the interaction of platinum (II) complexes with amino acids

Many scientists have focused their interest on the development of new drugs that contain platinum metal, such as cisplatin and carboplatin, since the discovery of the biological activity of platinum complexes as antitumor agents in 1969. These compounds have the ability to stop, or at least diminish the growth of carcinogen cells. This could be due to the fact that the metal prevents the reproduction of these cells by attaching itself to DNA. Recent electrochemical studies have demonstrated that the Pt atom of the carboplatin and certain amino acids due in fact interact. The objective of this study is to use spectroscopic methods to obtain more information about the platinum interaction in its reduced form with amino acids such as cistine, metionine, glicine and serine among others. Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy was used to carry out this investigation. Our results indicate that the interaction of the sulfur containing amino acids with the Pt(II) CBDCA is faster than with the amino acids glycine or serine. Previous results obtained via cyclic voltametric studies in our researched group were confirmed by the SERS Spectroscopic results presented here.